BioMedSciMed

ps. I'm sure this is obvious, but I'm a "Limbo-er"

Ok let me first just say; I know this is pathetic, I know it's probably not indicative of anything real but I have a question for anyone who has already recieved their "no" letter... or really anyone at all. If you view your fastlane homepage (the one where it shows "applicant data")- if you view that page in the HTML version and look at "applicant data"... at the end of it, mine says "" after my data. again, I know it's probably nothing... but can anyone else confirm that their page says or does not say this??

ok, Just.for.the.grfp. you're clearly trying to get a rise out of people so I'll bite; what on earth is wrong with you? what good could possibly be brought to anyone by your contributing a comment like that? Anything that you may have said that had any actual intellectual merit was completely clouded by the rudeness of your comment. The sad part is that that obviously took you a while to write and you have literally nothing to gain from posting that other than the satisfaction of knowing that you made someone else's day a little worse.

PS. I've titled this award notification fiasco "NSFGRFP2009_AASDER1" (AKA; National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2009 Award Announcement Sudden Death Elimination Round 1) so come on guys!! let's rally for NSFGRFP2009_AASDER1!! ... I have a feeling this name isn't going to catch on...

I did it too. I don't even care if it doesn't help- at least it will bring it to their attention even if it helps for next year instead.... I also posted it to my facebook page and I think like 15 people have written on my behalf so far :-) at least I'm pretty sure it can't hurt. To all the um... naysayers... out there; whatever. maybe there will be 5 more awards and maybe there will be so many they'll run out of "limbo-ers" and have to be calling up people who already got bad letters :-) but as far as I'm concerned, until I have the "thank you so much but..." letter in my hand, I'm still in the running... and so are a bunch of you probably. I mean we've already put soooo much energy and time into making the proposal and we've waited this long, let's not be so eager to put up the white flag guys!! Anyway, I'm just saying, we're big kids, we can deal with dissappointment when and if it comes, but for the time being- the possibility is still out there so everyone just take it easy. I once found $7 in a McDonalds trashcan so.. yeah. I'm just saying. miracles DO happen.

Again, I'm sorry. I should have read my post critically before I submitted it becasue the way it reads is not at all what I meant. I believe you submitted a fantastic proposal. I was comparing myself to myself- what I thought would be with what is. here's a comparison; if we all ran an obstacle course and I looked at it and thought "wow... I'm probably going to break my neck doing this" and then we come out at the other side and I say "gee... I'm glad I didn't faceplant" that doesn't mean that any of the rest of you did, it just means that I'm glad that I didn't. Of course I'm also aware that I could still trip walking away from the obstacle course and break my leg (IE the possibility if immenent rejection) - but for the time being, all I'm saying is that I'm glad I didn't faceplant. I'm pretty sure there's no way to further explain myself without angering even more people so I'll just have to hope that this can suffice. And I'm sure your proposal was fantastic and I'm sorry if I made things any worse for you.

and I'm a "she" not a "he" and I probably did start it.

haha, sounds like you've already got your speech worked out. Thanks buddy! can't wait to hear how it went!

I agree with the last poster- crawling under a rock sounds peaceful. And I do know that I have to deal with the reality that there truly may not be a chance in hell but for now I'm just going to give myself a few days to be happy that I at least know I managed to put out a respectable proposal and even if it's not HM or money, I'm proud of myself for that. That's all any of us limbo people need to think about right now.

Yeah, so- here I go again with my possibly useless optimism but yes; my area is underrepresented. they said Molecular biology usually gets 30 to 60 awards and there are only 16 posted right now.

Math123: I'm a very sorry you didn't get the award but please dont stay on the forum and tell other people still waiting that they're not going to get it either- believe me I'm aware of how slim the chances are... I don't need you to remind me. I know there are people who only applied for the prestige but for me this award will be the difference between staying in a lab and fufilling a lifelong dream vs. going into whatever lab has money to take me. So again, I'm sorry you didn't get the award but there's no need fo you to come in here and remind the rest of us how little chance we have of getting it becasue I gaurantee you, not one of us is sitting here thinking "oh, it's in the bag. Limbo = victory" sorry to be mean... but this is a very stressful time for me. I just think there'll be plenty of time to deal with rejection once the letter comes, I'm not in any hurry to be crushed.

Ah HA!! that's exactly it! don't you SEEEEE??? your application is IN that final pack. that's what I'm saying!! meaning the people in charge of giving out tons of money looked at your app and said "man... they should get it too... " not " definitely NO." I don't naturally have a ton of confidence and I don't go to carnegie-mellon or harvard or MIT... in fact, I turned down University of Chicago to go to Ohio State (- a decision I'm sort of questioning now that I see the preponderance of elite private schools in the awards list... ) my point is, if our applications are still there, it means we've got to be pretty close to just a good as anyone else still in limbo, so just the fact that they didn't laugh my application out of the running for going to Ohio State is something to me.

So... I'm a shameless optimist so let me say; I agree with you that at this point there is a very good chance of an honorable mention or even nothing at all- but considering the fact that many people keep "honorable mention- NSF GRFP" on their CV for quite a long time, it IS something (or as my mom would say "it's better than a sharp stick in the eye"). Maybe I'm not looking at things in the correct way, but In my way of thinking; before we had a 10% chance of winning, now there are many fewer applicants remaining and even if they give out 1400 HM's and 200 more fellowships, you're right that we have a 14% chance... but that extra 4% boost sure is making me hopeful. regardless, I don't see how a change from a 10% chance to a 14% chance makes our odds "worse"... but again, I'm a biologist and not a mathematician for a reason. Finally; When I was talking with the NSF lady I specifically asked "so.. you guys sent out a lot of rejections and no honorable mentions and there are still awards.. so... it seems like there will be a lot of rejections and a lot of honorable mentions still to go." her response: "Again, I can't comment as to anyone's chances but not necessarily, the number of honorable mentions could change significantly and they're still waiting to know what the total number of fellowships given out will be" so here's my SUPER optimistic idea; they reserved back enough of us to cushion for the possibility that they will get the max possible number of fellowships awarded this year. They told everybody already if they knew they definitely ARE (or are not :-( sorry guys) getting a fellowship and then out of us remaining people they'll give as many fellowships out as they can and then give HM's to as many people as they want and then the rest head home to drink.

I called NSF, I know many people feel lke we shouldn't be calling but I was extremly polite and I didn't bother them for that long. I just asked how many rejection notifications had been sent out, the lady said "I can't comment on exactly how many but there were a significant amount sent" additionally, she said that the number of honorable mentions differs from year to year, that the number of awards already awarded in your specific area doesn't mean much (so for all of the people thinking the number allotted for their discipline have already been given out, have heart!). I forgot to ask for timeline but I'm sure someone has already done that. So although I'm trying not to get my hopes up, it seems that things are not looking too bleak for us limbo people yet. (I'm chosing to ignore the fact that if our applications had been that great we would already have one... I know my area isn't all that interesting or popular so I'm shocked that I'm still in the running even!)

ok... I'm sorry to keep posting and I'm so sorry for everyone who has been notified of rejection already. For those of us who are still waiting to hear I'd like to say that the budget for NSF DOES say that there will be a 30% increase in GRFP for this year. I'm not up-to-date on all the numbers but since it appears as though the number of awards listed is pretty close to the same as last year, perhaps... there could possibly be another 200 awards announced still??? maybe?? correct me if I'm wrong... but actually... no... don't correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sure I'll know soon enough. Additionally on a more specific note; I'm in life sciences- molecular biology and there are only 18 awards in my area thusfar. I feel like this area should be better represented than this so I'm really REALLY still crossing my fingers. :?:

Haven't heard anything yet... do we have any idea how many rejections were sent out? Are my chances for an award still good? I'm feel lucky to still be hopeful but I'm worried this won't turn out well.... who knows....

I totally agree with you. I'm just not going to even think about this anymore. I get so frustrated that it's taking so long and then I remind myself that it's completely inappropriate for us complain about ANYTHING when we're asking for/hoping to win/expecting such an enormous amount of money

Good question and I agree that the funding begins in the fall although i'm really not sure- however I think you'd have a tough time finding funding sufficient to support you entire summer's research on such short notice. Maybe within your university there are still opportunities but as far as I know the application dates for summer funding are mostly passed by now. good luck!

yeah, I just tried it and it didn't work for me.... Now that it's almost time to find out, I don't even know if I want to know any more!! :cry:

could somebody tell me about this trick that people were using last year to see if they had been approved or not? do you just log into your fastlane and it says something different or what?

I just called the GRF operations center... naturally I know it won't do anything but I thought maybe I could prod them into giving me some info. Anyway, I just asked if they had any updates at all and the guy told me "early april, early april" and then I just said that it was really important (which of course it is to all of us) and he said "I honestly would let you know if I felt like it was going to happen really soon but at the moment we have absolutely no information whatsoever- they have not sent anthing over to us" I do realize how sad it is to keep begging but I just coudn't take it anymore. So, I don't know who releases the list of awards but if it's the operations center (and if this guy was truthful) it sounds like they aren't really even that close to putting the list up/emailing notifications. :oops:

Ech. As much as at pains me, I have to agree. Secretly I'd love to imagine that a good amount of the 3bil is going to us but realistically I know you're right. My area is biomedical engineering and unless I go into pharm, the situation is exactly as you describe; "too many PhD's, nowhere to go". So yeah... I'm sure they're thinking along similar lines.

Additionally, if the stimulus package DOES affect the nuber of fellowships affected, do people think that it will affect the TYPE of fellowships that get funded- I mean does anybody think the % of successful/funded proposals within certain disciplines will shift due to the purpose & goals meant to be achieved with the money? for example- I think that STEM sciences were mostly what was intended to benefit from the 3bil in NSF and 30 bil in NIH money, but as we all know a huge portion of NSF's fellowships go to other scientific fields as well... Do you think that when approving proposals they will be taking into consideration facts such as this? I don't mean to say that there will be any less funding within those areas, but perhaps that they would be funded at a constant rate while STEM disciplines might benefit more. does that make sense? maybe only to me.. This would be good for me (hopefully) but on the other hand, My research is on somthing that isn't such a huge problem in the US so if they consider the ideals behind what the stimulus packages was intended for, I probably wouldn't be considered anyway. oh well.. I don't know. I just thought I'd see what people though since I'm going nuts just waiting...and waiting... and waiting.

I hate to continue the speculation regarding the effect of the stimulus package on our possible fellowships but... I'm going to :-) I don't know if anyone has pointed this out but I believe the 3billion was allotted to NSF on the condition that it be designated by sept 2010- which is good for us! but also that it be entirely disbursed within 2 years- Something that is definitely NOT good for us considering the payments last for 3 years. So what do people think? and I misinterpreting the conditions here, I heard that the NIH's plan was to try to sort out funding proposals that they thought had the potential to be compressed into 2 years, and propose funding to the researchers on the condition that it fit into their timeline. Does anyone think the NSF might try this as well? I know that the GRfellowship is to be dusbursed over the course of 3 years, to be used in a maximum of 5, so do we think that they could safely change the disbursement time to 2 years and just give more money each year, and still allow it to be spent throughout 5, or do people think they will alter the timeline of the fellowship and offer more people support for a shorter peroid of time (thereby entirely changing the spirit of the fellowship but staying within the constraints of the timeline), OR, worst possible scenario; do we think that NSF will decide to not used the stimulus package money for fellowships at all and just direct it to other proposals? (post-doc, PI etc...) I also hate to be political but Obama is amazing... regardles of whether a penny of the NSF money goes to me or not.